Enterprises face various challenges in recovering email data, particularly when an email server, such as a MICROSOFT EXCHANGE server, goes down. The time needed to restore an email database is typically directly proportional to the size of the database. Thus, in the event of a failure, large databases may experience significant down time.
Various data recovery technologies are available to increase recovery time of email databases. For example, some recovery systems maintain snapshots, use a Continuous Data Protection (“CDP”) data-store, and/or provide instant export of a database image over a network. Unfortunately, these solutions may be resource intensive and/or may not significantly improve email down time. For example, maintaining snapshots and a using CDP data store may result in significant storage costs. Furthermore, instant export functionality may involve resynchronization of changes from an exported image (i.e., for performance reasons and/or general data protection policies that apply to a production storage stack.) Another problem with instant export solutions is that an image may only be exported if it exists on disk, and exporting may not be possible for some images (i.e., images in Software as a Service (“SaaS”) due to performance constraints. What is needed, therefore, is a more efficient and effective solution for recovering email databases.